Polaroid appears to be set to announce an Android OS-based interchangeable lens camera at the CES 2013 trade show. Imaging Resource has written an article in which Scott Hardy, President and CEO of Polaroid, has confirmed the upcoming announcement. While Scott has commented that "Additional information and specs will be released during the show", a product image on a Russian social media site shows a Nikon 1 series-like camera body and kit lens, while leaked specs suggest the camera runs Android 4, and features an 18.1-megapixel sensor and 3.5" touchscreen display. (From Imaging Resource)

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Anyone who has been to CES knows that most of what is announced is never available. The whole point of the show is to announce stuff to the world and sell it to vendors. If the vendors don't buy then you won't likely be buying it either. There are, of course, exception but by and large that is how it works. I have no doubt that if there is sufficient interest that Polaroid will deliver. Who knows? If Polaroid can undercut the other mirrorless options by a good margin they may even become the goto mirrorless cam for those on a budget. Especially if they're the only cheapo on the shelf.

This idea, an Android or other open platform camera, is THE BIGGEST POTENTIAL of existing technology that is unexploited by existing cameras. It should be married with a universal software/electronic lens mounting capability supported the manufacturer. (Don't tell me it is impossible or illegal. It has all be done, but piecemeal.) That would be a takeover move by an Apple class competitor. The end of the camera business as we have known it. (Polaroid on the other hand has been a joke. No one even knows who owns the name.)

The existing camera companies are too timid and backward in their thinking to do it until they are faced with the need to chase another company's lead.

Sony, who has great electronics technology, seems to have done a typical Sony "toe in the water" job with loadable apps on the Nex 5R and 6, but those is the typical stupid proprietary stuff like "memory stick" and ADCMP, or whatever it was instead of mp3.

Yeah but have you seen the Polaroid lineup they had out in 2012, i bought one of their 21x camera's and it works great. From what it seems like in the market, they are trying to keep it separate from Vivitar stuff...

I've been flipping back and forward between an image of a Nikon 1 and the new Polaroid. Funny that the strap lugs and the focus assist lamp are all in the same place. Maybe Nikon has found a new outlet for their 'highly successful' Nikon 1 camera system by partnering with a 'highly successful' camera brand like Polaroid?

The big question is: is a 3"-4" screen large enough to have a photoshop clone app, to do all your post processing work directly on the camera, instead of on a computer?

Otherwise, I really don't see the pertinence of giving yourself all the hassles of an OS with apps, updates, spyware, OS bugs, crashes, etc. We just want to bloody take pictures already, and good ones at that!

They should have explained the acronym, but it's sort of understandable that they didn't, because CES such a huge trade show that everyone in consumer electronics (though not end users) instantly knows what it is. It's held in Las Vegas and it's absolutely massive.

I guess they casually used the acronym the same way they would IS, JPEG, EVF, or any of the other acronyms that are no longer explained.

I don't know how good the camera will be but the Android OS gives the potential for enormous flexibility and all sorts of interesting features.

I couldn't work out at first if it was a Nikon 1 relative or just happened to look like it but even the lens internals look the same, if you look at a head on picture of the Nikon lens the inside looks identical and you can see both lenses have a bayonet for a lens hood that look the same too so I think there's definitely a connection between the two cameras.

It could be a fun tool for experimenting with C mount (and some D mount) lenses that won't give full coverage on m43 as long as the camera has decent magnified live view and peaking for focusing. In theory the video quality could be hacked far beyond standard settings.

I will never complain about there being more interchangeable lens cameras on the market, if the fickle public start ditching needlessly small compacts for cameras like this it can only be a good thing for us all.

Also while Polaroid is just a brand name now this is probably the best camera to have the name on in a long time which is also a good thing. This is probably the first camera for a while that comes close to being worthy of the name.

The poundland chain sell Polaroid branded photo paper which is obviously offcuts because some packs are good and some have obvious manufacturing flaws, it's a shame such a name finds it's way onto such poor quality product.

Another sign that it's related to the Nikon 1 is that the kit lens shown in the promo piece is 10-30 mm. That suggests that at the very least it is the same size sensor as Nikon 1. If so, hopefully lenses and accessories will be interchangeable between this Polaroid and Nikon 1 series bodies, as is the case with Panasonic and Olympus M4/3 products.

Just what every photographer want's to see when they 'boot' their camera.

Or how about:

- An update is available, would you like to install now or take pictures?- Google is down, can your subject wait?- Your google account is locked, camera is shutting down.- Your google credit is running low, top-up today and receive a 10% discount- Location server indicates photos not permitted in this location, camera is shutting down.- Using a slow 2GB class 4 card? Promotion today only 4GB class 6 only $5.- When you're done taking pictures why not print on HP premium glossy, only $0.99 for 20 sheets while stocks last.

Now I have a standard, well understood platform as a basis, instead of whatever Canon or Nikon or Fuji has developed. If I don't like the stock firmware, I can install my own version. I can add any feature I want and I can add features other users have created.

Android is a platform, which is open source, and divorced from Google. If you want to run Google's services (maps, etc), you have to play by their rules. If you don't - it's just like any other OS.

The open source part is only the starting point. It then gets heavily modified by the manufacturer to play with all their proprietary stuff within the camera. You will only get to play with any of that if the manufacture decides to give you an API, otherwise you'll have to build it all yourself from scratch a'la Magic Lantern.

You may be excited by the techie possibilities, but it's commerce driving this adoption. Either the fact it's a free head start, or the ability to integrated value added services.

Either way, it all stems from the fact that Google bought it for $50,000,000 and then gave it away free. They did this not because they are Santa Clause, but because they know how to make lots of money from it in the longer game by knowing what you're doing and where and when you're doing it. It's not like they hide the fact, it's been stated many times, including when they bought Android Inc.

Android 2.x was wrestled onto tablets and did not fare well - Google then rushed a 3.0 release suited for tablets (but not phones), then made 4.x which fits both platforms. And now they wrestle that onto a camera... the circus starts anew.

agree.. i had android 1.5 on a previous Samsung phone. The camer was rudimentary to say the least. Upgraded to 2.1 for phone functionality and Whoaaa.. suddenly I had multiple resolution, compensation, macro, BW and a whole list of stuff as options. Only because the camera was capable of doing them of course.. but the OS was restricting it before.

I probably wouldn't buy it. not least before seeing some results but I don't get the angst you sometimes get here. Peace :)

Soooo, not terribly excited. Polaroid isn't a real company anymore: they went bankrupt and the brand was snatched up by vultures.

The article says that the camera will be "made" by Sakar, but Sakar is just an importer and labeller or cheap Chinese junk electronics — they'll contract out to someone to actually design and make the thing.

A camera with the ability to have user customizable interface. Download and install camera apps based on how you like to use your camera. Imagine a camera where you aren't limited to the camera makers idea of what the interface should look like. That's the future. If you pair this idea with solid hardware then it's going to be really big.

OK, why have the camera be the android system? What if you just had some powerful port like Thunderbolt that could handle anything you can throw at it, and let an external android tablet with its own powerful cpu be the brains and display. You'd end up wth something like the Black Magic Cinema camera, but instead of that lcd screen fixed on the back, you have a thunderbolt port and you place the android tablet anywhere you want. Inside all of the hardware functions of the camera would be laid open to the control tablet. If you need more frames per second you buy the latest tablet that has the computational power to do that. So you let the camera people focus on the raw functionality of capturing an image with a sensor and you let the open source community build whatever camera functionality you want off of the tablet. You could even make the hardware side modular so that you could place a new sensor in, change the lens mount, etc.

I don't know who owns the brand now... but it is clear that the chinese, now that many companies have trained them to make cameras for them through technology transfer, now probably want to bite the hand that feeds them by introducing their own brands... what better way than to do it under an iconic name known for innovation (patents).

I wish Polariod could stay in the niche area and produce instant print cameras.

They have the Z230 in the past which is a 10MP camera that allows instant print without ink. It doesn't have any zoom and the IQ couldn't compete with others but it is such a fun camera to use imagine going to a party.

Polaroid film cameras were always about instant results. They're probably trying to build a camera around instant image manipulation and social network sharing via Android apps like what happens with cell phones.

If Porsche should build a tractor, people expect it to go fast,If coca cola decides to grow vegetables, people expect them to have a coca flavor,If Apple decides to build pencils, people expect them to be sleek and webenabled,if Ray Ban decides to build hats, people expect them to be retro,if Polaroid decides to build Android camera's, people expect them to p[op out instant pics,

Porsche built a total of ~150.000 tractors between '48 and '63. That's not "loads of tractors" neither is "very popular". Many of them were purpose-built for coffee plantations in Brazil and were exported there./offtopic

The new instant pic is facebook. It makes sense to me. Most people use their smartphones as polariods in that they take the picture and everybody can instantly see it on their own phones and computers.

I think almost all CSC cameras would benefit from running something like Android, as long as it's fast and they get full access to the camera H/W. That way there's no worrying about crap firmware and "missing" features like focus peaking etc. as they can all be implemented by 3rd party apps.